La paga (2025 restoration Joyce Ventura, Maleza Cine and Fundación Patrimonio Filmico Colombiano)

Ciro Durán: La paga (CO/VE 1962).

CO/VE 1962. Prod.: Marcos Hernández, Rafael Uzcátegui, Marina Gil.

    Director: Ciro Durán. Scen.: Ciro Durán. F.: Raúl Delgado – b&w. M.: J. Garrido. Int.: Alberto Alvarez, María Escalona, Luis Márquez Páez, Paco De la Riera, Luisito, Eduardo Mancera, Aníbal Rivero, Herman Lester, Rafael Vallejo. 

    In Spanish.

    61 min

    Not released in Finland.

    Restored in 4K in 2025 by Joyce Ventura, Maleza Cine and Fundación Patrimonio Filmico Colombiano in collaboration with Cinemateca de Bogotá and Fundación Cinemateca de Venezuela, from a 35 mm dupe negative. Funding provided by Fondo para el Desarrollo Cinematográfico de Colombia and Joyce Ventura.

    DCP with English subtitles from Maleza Cine.

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2025: Cinemalibero.

    Introduced by Vladimir Durán, hosted by Cecilia Cenciarelli.

    Viewed at Cinema Jolly with e-subtitles in Italian, 24 June 2025.

"La paga" means "Pay Day".

Vladimir Durán (Bologna 2025): "In the Colombian-Venezuelan Andes, a peasant works the land under exploitative conditions to ensure the survival of his family. His son is ill, his wife is pregnant, and he reproduces the violence that surrounds him. With no money for medical treatment, one night he gets drunk and is arrested. In jail, in a burst of fury, he rebels against the town’s political boss in the only way he can."

"La paga is a pioneering work of Latin American social and political cinema, released in 1962 – the same year as Glauber Rocha’s debut film Barravento – and anticipating movements such as the Third Cinema of Getino and Solanas."

"Influenced by Italian Neorealism and Soviet cinema, it uses the archetypal representation of characters and the social and economic forces they embody, drawn from director Ciro Durán’s own childhood observations."

"Upon its completion, La paga was denounced by the government of Rómulo Betancourt as “subversive”, with “moral, anti-religious, and political objections” and accused of going “against the constitutional order prevailing in Venezuela”. These accusations led to a boycott that prevented the film’s screening at international festivals."

"This restoration is dedicated to the memory of Esther Durán and, of course, to our father Ciro Durán, who with this film began a lifelong commitment to Colombian and Latin American cinema through directing, producing, union organising, promoting public policy, and fostering co-productions across the region." Vladimir Durán (Bologna 2025)

AA: Ciro Durán (1937–2022) was a giant of Colombian culture. His bold debut film La paga [Pay Day] was suppressed so effectively that its true world premiere takes place only now, 63 years after it was made – at Cannes Film Festival in May, at Il Cinema Ritrovato in June.

The director's son Vladimir Durán quotes in his program note Barravento as a contemporary pioneering work of Latin American cinema of social consciousness. They would make a great double bill, Barravento portraying the life of fishermen of the Atlantic, La paga that of potato field workers on the Andes.

Ciró Duran loved to include Soviet classics in his Guaicaipuro art cinema programmes in Caracas, and the influence is evident, as well as affinities with Ford (The Grapes of Wrath), Buñuel (Los olvidados) and Visconti (La terra trema).

The focus is on one man, a potato field worker, and his family. His wife is expecting a new baby. The son is ill with stomach pain. The man's clothes are in shreds, and meals are invariably cooked from dried peas. On payday, the salary is two sacks of potatoes. The wife rails at her man, the man beats her, and wearing his machete, takes his overworked mule to town. He cannot afford either a doctor nor medicine, but he buys food, denim for clothes, and beer for himself. He is fed up, dead tired, apathetic, powerless. He sees memory flashes and runs riot with his machete, heaping abuse on exploiters. He is not afraid of anything. Enter the apparatus of violence. "Arrest him for disturbing the peace". He is beaten by the police. Blood streams on the street. Carried by his hands and feet he is thrown to prison, behind bars. A rebellious crowd marches on the street. The bourgeoisie is horrified. The class struggle plays out as a stylized ballet. A political speech is given. The mother gives birth to the baby. The son plays alone. The movie ends abruptly. This is not the end, it's a beginning.

The resurrection of La paga is a major event. A milestone of Latin American and global cinema has become available again. Decades have passed, but the account of exploitation and oppression is still topical, as can be discovered in Peter Canby's article "Padre Marcelo's Last March" (The New York Review of Books, 24 July 2025).